Finding space to create movement in our lessons is important for our kinesthetic learners. If we do not find ways to engage them, we can expect to lose them. Moreover, movement is important for all students. It wakes them up, energizes them, and an alert student is more likely to learn. What follows is a lesson that was developed with the help of Jasmine Wong, program associate for the Toronto Office of Facing History and Ourselves. It relies on the use of the Gallery Walk, thus getting students up and moving. The lesson was designed specifically to meet the expectations of locally developed Genocide and Crimes Against Humanities course, CHG38 (see expectations as listed in the Human Zoos Lesson plan), but can be tailored to most History courses.

We always say that Canada is a young country, but that never hits home till you come to Europe. Here I am in Krakow, the old imperial capital of Poland, whose existence is first mentioned by a Jewish merchant in 965 CE. A city gradually grew on this important trade route near the important salt mines of Bochnia, which would eventually account for 30% of Poland's national income in the 15th and 16th centuries.

As educators, we want the answers as to why our students aren't learning. Do they have special education needs such as a learning disability? Are they lacking motivation? Did they get enough sleep the night before? Did they have breakfast? But how many of us ever ask: do my students feel safe? Overwhelming brain based research indicates the importance of students feeling safe in schools in order for them to be able to learn.

BULLY

by Hirsch, Lee.. Anchor Bay Entertainment, Inc..

Facing History Toronto is delighted to announce we have been able to add 3 'Bully' Film Educator Kits to our resource library*.

Regent Park. This is where I teach. Originally, this east end Toronto neighbourhood was a planned garden community, with a mixture of mid rise and high rise rental apartments; originally, a place meant for parents to raise children. What has happened over 60 years in Regent Park is that it has become isolated, closed off from the surrounding city, a place where poor and new immigrants have made homes. The community has had its share of issues common to many big city neighbourhoods such as drugs, gangs and crime, but Regent Park is not a community made up of big city issues, it’s a community made up of diverse people!

In “Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: Ingredients for Critical Teacher Reflection,” Tyronne Howard notes the importance of finding ways to address the growing heterogeneity of our students cultural needs to “construct pedagogical practices that have meaning to students’ social and cultural realities,” (195-6). Literature Circles are a model that I used, which I have found to be an effective tool for engaging students using differentiation. The diverse nature of my classroom, which is common for an urban school, makes it is difficult to find a single text that will engage each student in the classroom. Since those students who do not engage and read their texts are traditionally the least successful, it is important to try and find materials they will.

Being a teacher keeps me thinking and growing all the time. It seems that as I age, my skills must get ever nimbler even as my legs fail to keep pace. I find that I am spending more and more time reflecting on how to create lessons that have a lasting impact, which leaves me less time to prepare the actual lesson. To speed the process, I needed a rubric for reflection--and Facing History's wonderful workshop on Urban Education that took place on 27 May was the perfect prescription. I want to share the highlights with you!

After a year of learning about Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, students gravitate towards complex and profound questions that are increasingly difficult to answer. In a setting that involves teaching at-risk youth, this type of engagement can be frustratingly elusive. The lesson (content wise) that I will share with you today is one that should not stand alone. This took place in class after having done 3 case studies, including Rwanda, and a unit on concepts of Justice and Memorial. I found that this lesson was very successful at engaging students of all stripes through particular stories of perpetrators to try to gain a better understanding of universal questions of guilt, responsibility, reconciliation, and justice.

Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy [CRRP]

I have worked at an alternative school in Scarborough (Toronto’s east end) with students that are 18-20 years of age for the past seven years. These students represent some of the most disengaged and difficult to reach students in Scarborough (if they were not, they would never arrive at my school). In that time I have come to learn: one, the term ‘Inner City Schools’ is an awkward designation given that in Toronto, at least, most of our ‘at-risk’ students are in the inner suburbs, not the inner city; and two, I have found no magic teaching strategy to solve the dilemma of reaching these students (if there was, I suppose, there would be no need for the on-going discussion and my school would not exist). Moreover, ‘Inner City School’ students are, like every other, a diverse group, and an approach that may work for one student may not work for another.